


Episodes

by jollywriter



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, F/F, Happy Ending, mercy saves the day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 12:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10967502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollywriter/pseuds/jollywriter
Summary: each "episode" will feature a different pairing and characters as the characters in the Overwatch universe carry on with their lives, and confront a new, grim reality when Winston activates the recall.





	Episodes

**Author's Note:**

> the Battlefield Angel, Angela Ziegler is currently working in a refugee camp, trying to help and protect scared people. When confronted with the reality of children taken hostage behind enemy lines, Angela takes it upon herself to see them returned to safety.

Angela Ziegler stabbed the tail of her caduceus staff into the ground and leaned on it for a moment. She was exhausted, sweaty, and tired, and her day was far from done.

The Omnic Legion made another push against Mosul earlier today and the casualties were heavy. Her doctors were working overtime, and there still wasn’t enough good help to go around.

The one kindness was her Swiss contacts had provided enough materiel. She had the blood and the surgical equipment to help everyone who needed it; she just needed more skilled surgeons to help heal those who wounded.

She stood up, took a step forward, leaned her staff against her table in her tent. She wanted nothing more than to lay down and take a nap.

She pulled the stethoscope off her neck, laid it on the table, and shrugged out of her lab coat.

She’d no sooner sat down on her cot when Iman knocked on the wooden stake that held up part of her tent and said, “Doctor Ziegler?”

She rubbed her eyes, “So the Omnics didn’t get the memo about my needing a nap?”

“I’m afraid not,” he was tall, lean, and strong, and his fingers were long and delicate. He was a skilled surgeon and he had a gentle bedside manner, too. His eyes were soft as he looked at her. “A truck just brought some wounded refugees in.”

She nodded. “Right. I’ll be along behind you.”

“Of course,” he nodded and let the flap on her tent fall back into place. The darkness was quiet and she was sorely tempted to rouse Reginald and Lucile and tell them to help, too.

She stood, grabbed her staff and her stethoscope, and ran out of her tent.

The truck was near the front of the refugee camp, an old six-by with a torn canvas top and punctured tires. The driver was wounded, slumped against the door, nurses and helpers fussed over everyone near the vehicle.

Nearby, artillery shells exploded, puffs of smoke that could be seen beyond the camp.

She slung her staff to her back via the strap she’d mounted to it, and proceeded to push her way through the crowd, “Please, stand aside, let me through!”

She had to push her way through, but finally reached the back of the truck.

It was full of families. Most were wounded in one way or another, the grooved floorboards were coated in blood. For a terrible moment, Angela wondered if she’d be able to keep her stomach calm.

She closed her eyes, took a slow breath, and then focused.

She put her stethoscope in her ears, and said, “Jamal, get stretchers for everyone, Iman, can you help the driver? Rami, we’ll need pressure bandages. Get on it!”

Around her, people jumped to action, the crowd backed away enough for her to start triage. She reached into the back of the truck, brushed the dark hair of a little girl aside, and checked for a pulse.

Weak and thready. Angela put her stethoscope in her ears, and gently pressed it to the girl’s chest.

The girl winced, cried a little in pain.

Angela pulled back. She had no blood on her body, no obvious surface wounds. With her thump, she pressed just a little on the middle of the ribs of the girl, and her face balled up in pain.

“Concussive trauma,” Angela whispered to herself. The Omnics were adapting air-blast weapons now, which created devastating shockwaves that leveled buildings or collapsed caves. Such weapons wouldn’t leave obvious shrapnel damage, but the force of hitting the body would still dislodge organs and break bones.

She lifted her caduceus staff, and withdrew a small injector connected to a reservoir of nanite healing bots.

She rubbed the girl’s arm, and then pressed the injector against her forearm. A small green light lit up above the injection site, and a small seal was made. In the tip, the flesh was automatically sterilized before the needle pierced the skin.

Angela programmed the nanites to a preset function; repair internal bleeding, and complete diagnostics on organ and bone damage.

She released the flow of nanites, the tube glowed briefly bright gold as it flowed into the little girl.

The child inhaled sharply, and the relaxed.

Angela removed the injector, and ran a hand gentle over the girl’s forehead. In Arabic, she asked, “Can you hear me?”

The girl nodded.

“You were so brave,” Angela grinned. “You’re going to be okay.”

The little girl nodded.

Jamal came back with men and women he’d roped in to help haul the litters, and Angela gingerly picked the child up, and laid her down on a stretcher. Jamal made a funny face and the girl smiled.

Angela turned to the next wounded person.

His wounds were more obvious and he’d lost a lot of blood. “I need a tourniquet and a pressure bandage!” Angela called.

“Here,” Reginald said. He sounded groggy, but she removed the dirty rags that the civilians had used to try and staunch the bleeding before she reapplied clean dressings.

“Jamal!” Angela called.

“Here, Ms. Ziegler!” Jamal ran back.

“I need to get him into surgery immediately. Get him prepped; match his blood and get him two units, quick as you can.”

“It will be done.”

With gloved hands, they eased the wounded man out of the truck, and onto a litter.

Angela climbed up into the back with Reginald and together, they processed the rest of the wounded.

It took too long, the sun was nearly down by the time they’d dealt with all the hurt people and things had started to calm down again.

Angela did the math while she washed again, and prepared to leave the hospital. It wasn’t much of a hospital; four pre-fabricated buildings slapped together with the walls pulled out in the middle to great one massive surgical suite.

In the wash room, she took a sterile cloth and wiped down her staff. There were bloody fingerprints all over it.

Reginald came in, tugged the mask down from around his nose and mouth and looked at her with a vacant, dead expression.

“You look how I feel,” She said. She laid the staff across her knees to buff at a dried blood handprint.

“How long was that?”

“I did thirty-two hours,” She said. “I think you did thirty-one.”

“Drat,” he said, without any energy. “Outclassed again.”

She smiled, “But we lost none this time.”

“That’s worth celebrating,” he said. “May I buy you a drink? I hear this year’s vintage of filtered water is particularly fine.”

Angela shook her head, “Thank you, no. I just want sleep.”

“Have you heard from your significant other?” he sat down. He still had his gloves from the last patient on his hands, and his surgical scrubs were spotted with dark red.

“No,” Angela tried not to sound nervous. Despite her best efforts, she worried endlessly for Fareeha. “She’s busy fighting. So. Not a lot of time to write letters.”

“That is unfortunate.” Reginald said. “Still! You must have done something right to have drawn such an impressive person to your side.”

“I am fortunate,” Angela said. “I seem to have been blessed by the company of great people.”

She thought of Fareeha, and young Lena, and Winston and the others.

She missed them, and at their recollection, she felt an ache of longing so acute that her heart actually hurt to think of them.

She finished cleaning her staff, threw away the wipe, and stomped the end on the ground. “Well. I am off.”

“I’ll tell Rami and Jamal to find someone else to cover for you while you rest.”

“I appreciate that. But you know how it is.”

“I do,” He nodded. She left the hospital.

On her way back to her tent, Jamal ran over. He had a small cut on his forehead.

“What happened?” She stopped, put the base of the staff in the ground and used it to hold herself up. “Are you alright?”

“Amy needs you,” he said.

It was a silly question but she asked anyway, “Does she need me right now? I need to rest.”

“She said it was an emergency.”

Angela nodded, and followed behind Jamal. He led her to the center of the camp, where the nicest tent was set up. It was huge, and divided into two sections. Half was the sleeping quarters of the camp Manager, the other half was a meeting area.

Amy Mulholland was at the head of the table, tablets ablaze in front of her. She had her head in her hands, here hair was unkempt, and she looked haggard and tired.

Angela felt the way Amy looked.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah,” Amy said. “I heard a rumor that you’re not just a kindly neighborhood doctor.”

Angela stiffened. She’d made no secret of who she was; the caduceus staff was hard to hide. At the same time, if no one asked about her past life in Overwatch, she never volunteered the information. She was just Angela Ziegler; doctor.

“Does that have any bearing on why you called me?” Angela asked.

“It may,” She said. “Are you really Mercy? The battlefield angel?”

Angela did not react openly. Instead, she said, “That was a long time ago.”

“Fine,” Amy waved her hand away. “Look, those refugees brought a report with them, and they tell me there’s girls trapped in a school, ten miles from here.”

“Can we pass that along to the army?”

“I did,” Amy said. “As soon as I heard it. But those ten miles are eight miles behind the front.”

Angela shuddered. Not for the first time, she wished Gabriel and Jesse were around. Blackwatch could get behind those lines, no problem.

She felt guilty for wishing they were around.

“So why did you tell me this?” Angela asked.

Amy thrummed her hands on the surface of the table. Her eyes were dark and looked bruised, she’d gotten so little sleep lately. “Because if you have a way to go get those kids, I’m all ears.”

Angela slumped. “I don’t know. I’m not a soldier, and the ones I knew are dead.”

“Look, Overwatch politics aside, I don’t mind looking the other way in this moment if you know someone who can help.”

“I don’t,” Angela said. “Everyone I did know who could’ve either pushed through Omnic lines or snuck behind them to get those kids out is actually dead. If they weren’t killed in the blast that destroyed my home then they were hunted immediately after by Talon. Okay? I don’t know how I can help right now.”

Amy looked away. “Don’t lie to me.”

“Why would I lie?” Angela hissed. “You’ve made your views about Overwatch very clear but let me be equally explicit: that was my family. And I watched them burn and die. I would not invent that, nor would I wish it on anyone.”

Some of the stiffness in Amy’s shoulders faded and she nodded. “Fine. Thank you. You are dismissed, Doctor.”

Angela took up her staff and stormed out.

The night was cold, cold in ways it only got in the desert. A faint wind blew through the camp, carried dust and the smell of gunpowder from the battles, two miles away.

Artillery and gunfire could still be heard, even back here.

“I’m sorry,” Jamal said, behind Angela. She turned. “I didn’t know she was going to be like that.”

Angela shrugged, “I don’t blame her. It hurts to remember but I don’t blame her for resenting where I’ve come from.”

“I don’t,” Jamal said. “Overwatch gave you that magic staff,” he crossed his arms.

“It’s not magic,” She smiled. “It’s applied science. But it looks that way sometimes.”

“I’ve seen you resurrect people, Doctor Ziegler. I’d say it was magic.”

Angela tried not to feel proud of that. And failed. But she remembered the cost of what it’d taken to develop the technology she used to save lives and steal them from death. And her heart hurt, anyway.

“Jamal,” She said. “Where are the kids?”

“A school,” He gave her the exact location.

Angela thrummed her fingers on her staff, and considered. She could get word to Fareeha. If nothing else, she could elicit some backup. Maybe.

If nothing else, someone would know where Angela had fallen, so if they ever pushed that far, someone could give Angela a proper burial.

“Jamal, I need to ask something of you. It’s not easy, it’s obscenely dangerous, and it I’m not sure I have any place to actually ask.”

“Name it,” He said. “You saved my parents. I’ll do anything.”

“I need to get through the Omnic lines.”

“You, and who else?”

“Just me.” Angela sighed. She had an idea, but it was stupid, and she doubted it could work. But if it did, she’d help some people.

And that was enough to warrant trying.

“Are you sure?”

Angela shrugged, “We’ll find out. Can you do it?”

“Certainly. These are my mountains. I know them better than the Omnics ever could.”

Angela smiled. “Excellent.”

“Do you need to rest first?”

“Probably,” Angela shrugged. “But those kids have spent enough time being scared and threatened. I’ll sleep when we’re done.”

“Okay. I need ten minutes to make the preparations.”

“Very well. Meet me at my tent when you’re ready.”

“Okay,” he ran off.

Angela returned to her tent, recharged her staff with fresh nanite tubes and batteries, took extras in her travel pack, and loaded the rest of her gear.

She took her phone, and messaged Fareeha. In the simplest terms possible, she told her what she meant to do. And she finished with a simple sentiment.

_I love you, habibti._

She looked at the locked trunk she kept under her bunk. It was battered, olive drab in color, marked in four languages to keep hands off, and her name was stenciled on the top.

She’d personally colored out the Overwatch logo that was stenciled under her name.

She considered. Should she? It was a bold statement, and something that’d draw a lot of attention if she were noticed.

She drew the trunk out, and opened it.

Yeah. It’d matter, when the time came.

She dressed, put on a ratty overcoat that wouldn’t draw a lot of attention, and strapped her blaster to her hip. It was older, chipped and marked with hard use.

She’d carried it ever since she was seventeen.

She was ashamed of how often she’d had to use it.

“Doctor Ziegler?” Jamal called.

“Ready,” She said, she snatched up her staff, pushed the trunk back under her cot, and left.

Outside, was a big, ex-military SUV. The doors were pulled off, and it was a little rusty. There were bullet holes in the sides.

“Are you sure?”

“It doesn’t look like much but it’ll run just fine,” he said. “And it’ll carry everyone we get back.”

“Good.”

She got in, and he pulled away.

 

#

 

Part of the business of being smuggled across a battlefield was to find the pockets where neither side fought.

It was a rough road, and while Jamal didn’t seem nervous, Angela held on to the hand-holds with both hands. It was profoundly uncomfortable, and exhausting to ride through. The vehicle shook and vibrated with the roughness of the road.

When they passed through a valley an untold time later and emerged on a smooth (by comparison) road, Angela felt like a mess. She relaxed in the seat, and felt the urge to pass out.

“That was awful,” She said.

“Well, it’ll be that bad going back. But we can make better time back.” He said.

She nodded, looked around. The headlights didn’t do a great job illuminating the darkness beyond. Occasionally there were starbursts from artillery that detonated prematurely in the air that lit up the sky.

But that light was fleeting and terrifying in it’s momentary illumination.

Jamal pulled off the side of the road and turned off the vehicle, “The school is over that hill.” He said.

She nodded. “Stay here. Keep the car safe.”

She climbed out, and checked her bag. She was as ready as she could be. Adrenaline woke her up, made her jumpy. It was more helpful than feeling lethargic, but not by much.

“Do you need help?”

“No. I’ll be okay.” Angela grinned.

“If you say so.”

“I do. Be safe.”

She turned up the hill and set off at a jog. She climbed quickly up past the boulders, and the loose sand didn’t slow her down much. She used her staff to gain traction when the going got tough.

Near the top, she got down on her hands and knees and crept up to the top. She took cover next to a boulder at the top, and pulled a pair of night vision binoculars from her bag. She gazed at the school.

The school had no lights on externally. She saw men mill about, with weapons to hand.

She didn’t recognize their markings. Were they with the Omnics? She didn’t think so; there were usually small QR tags on the buildings that supported Omnics, in their territory. When they lost ground, the tags were pulled down.

Given how far from the front this was, Angela had no reason to assume that they had hidden tags of affiliation.

But then again. If they were hiding from retribution, this would be an ideal place to set up. So far behind Omnic lines that no one would dare venture out to strike back.

No one but an idiot.

Angela rolled her eyes, continued to look through her binoculars. There didn’t seem to be a lot of guards outside. But at the same time, there were deep tire tracks that led away from the side of the building.

She saw no snipers, however.

Small favors.

She put the binoculars back in the bag, and stood. She snatched up her staff and headed down the hill. She kept low. The dark cloak made her hard to see against the dark rocks and ground.

She moved quickly, reached the bottom of the hill in short order.

She kept low as she approached the school. The guards moved about slowly, their eyes turned away from the building to look at the desert.

She gripped her staff tighter, and then sprinted towards the school. She covered ground rapidly, her legs strong and her pace quick, and she gained rapidly. One of the guards turned, spotted her, and she lunged at him, swung her staff like a bat, caught him in the temple, and knocked him out in a single swing. He collapsed.

She rushed the guard next to him, hooked her staff under his leg, and as he started to topple, she twisted it around, caught him in the chest, and threw him down. She thwacked him on the forehead, and he lie still.

She climbed through a broken window, and emerged into the dark school.

She listened.

There were quiet cries and voices down the hall, far to the left.

She moved forward, she kept low to the ground.

She found the classroom where the kids were prisoner. She saw through the dirty windows and spotted the kids. It had two guards inside it, and they paced restlessly around the room. She slung her staff to her back, and pulled her pistol from her holster. Her stomach turned at what she needed to do, but it wouldn’t slow her down.

She gripped the pistol tighter, and kicked the door in.

Both guards turned, she didn’t rush through yet, she hung back, fired into the first one. Her blaster threw hot plasma into the first guard, and it took him down in a hurry.

Gunfire tore into the doorway, and she flinched back, twisted, shot out the window with a round that went into the ceiling and away from the kids, and shot the second guard. He collapsed.

She moved into the room.

The children recoiled from her, terrified, they stared at her with wide, frantic eyes.

Her heart broke.

She holstered the blaster, “It’s okay. I’m here to help you.” This she said in Arabic.

The children did not calm down. Angela did not blame them.

She shrugged her cloak off, shook her wings out. “I promise, I’ll get you out of here safely.”

They quieted a little. She was grateful for that. Her uniform was always meant to reassure people. No one walks into a warzone wearing white, with wings that glow gold when she flies.

The children looked at her with big eyes but slightly less fear. She smiled at them. “We’ll be okay.”

Out in the hallway, the door that led outside burst open, and the remaining guards rushed through.

She ran forward, yanked her pistol, and fired down the hallway. Men yelled and ducked, one fell.

She pulled back into cover, and recharged the pistol.

She needed backup, that’s what she needed. Angela gripped the pistol with both hands, and listened for a break in the gunfire to poke her hand out and shoot back.

But the gunfire was constant. It whittled away the doorway. She yelled, “Lay flat on the ground!”

The children got down and covered their heads.

The gunfire did not let up. One person was always firing, and the men were advancing slowly as they did shoot.

They were gonna see the kids soon and Angela had no idea if they’d stop shooting when they saw the children.

Overhead, a jet whined past.

It was a familiar noise, the engines loud and they shrieked and Angela realized, it wasn’t a jet.

Angela rushed forward and crouched with the children.

They cried out at the noise of the engines.

“Do not be afraid,” Angela said. “That’s not a jet.”

The gunfire stopped briefly.

“That’s Pharah,” Angela smiled.

The children recognized what she said.

She heard the punch and zoom of the rockets as they fired. A man screamed, and the explosion rocked the hallway.

Angela noticed a crack in the wall at the far side of the room. She stood, grabbed one of the old desks, and hurled it at the crack. The wall crumbled, broke, and beyond it she saw a room with windows. She shot those out, and to the children, she said, “Come on!”

The kids followed her, and she picked them up, eased them out the window. “Stay close to the ground.” She ordered.

The children huddled near the edge of the building.

Angela climbed through, and pulled her phone. She called Jamal, “Get up here, as fast as you can!”

“On the way!”

She pocketed her phone, kept her staff, and pistol, to hand.

The jet noise did not cease while Pharah flew and fought. She heard a thump, a shot, and men screaming.

And then she rounded the corner.

Fareeha Amari is tall outside her Raptora suit. In it? She’s over seven feet, and her presence is so commanding that it constantly staggers Angela that she’s alive. She draws so much attention, her presence commands so much respect.

Angela loved her for it. And for the woman she was.

“Fareeha!” Angela holstered the pistol and shrugged the staff across her shoulders and ran to her girlfriend.

Fareeha dropped her rocket launcher to the end of it’s straps and shoved it to her back. She took Angela into her arms and lifted her off the ground with ease.

“Hello, little angel,” Fareeha said. “This was a reckless thing you did.”

“You don’t get to lecture me about being reckless when you come to my aid single-handledly.”

Angela ran her finger along Fareeha’s jaw, and tugged briefly at the strap. “Not yet,” Fareeha said. “There’s armored vehicles approaching.”

“Omnic?”

“Human, with permission to advance given by Omnics.”

“That’s peculiar.”

“It’s not our concern. Getting you and these children out, is.”

Fareeha gestured to the unconscious soldiers who'd taken the children hostage. 

"What about 'do no harm'?" Fareeha asked with a sideways glance. 

"I abide by my oath," Angela held her head high. "But there's an addendum."

"Oh?"

"I protect my patients." Angela didn't mean it to sound so intense, but Fareeha's eyebrows went up  a little and she smiled. 

"Oh how I love you, liebling." 

Angela blushed, and turned to look at the kids. They were huddled close to the wall, eyes wide and staring at them. Angela took Fareeha’s gloved hand. “Come on. You’ll put them at ease.”

Fareeha reached up, undid the strap that secured her helmet to her head, and approached the children.

“You’re Pharah!” A little girl in the middle leapt up and pointed.

Fareeha’s face lit up with an enormous grin. “I am the Rocket Queen,” Fareeha winked.

The little girl giggled. The others looked less afraid in Fareeha’s presence. It was an honest thing. Pharah was never afraid. Why should they fear anything in Pharah’s presence?

Angela’s phone rang. She fished it from her pocket.

It was Jamal, “There’s a tank rolling towards you!”

“Stay hidden,” She said. “We’ll come to you.” She pocketed the phone and said, “We need to run.”

“Up the hill,” Fareeha said. “I’ll cover you.”

“Will your rockets do anything to the tank?”

“I might be able to blow a tread off. Or break the sensors. Maybe get a lucky shot and get the lid open.”

They began to run up the hill. Fareeha up front, Angela in the back, making sure all the kids got out okay.

They got halfway up when the tank breasted the hill, and rolled towards the school. Fareeha crouched, and motioned for all the kids to get low.

Once they were down, Fareeha scuttled along the rocks, back down towards the school. She waited until she was far away from the kids, and then powered up her rocket pack and leapt into the air. The tank’s turret immediately swiveled to follow.

Fareeha rushed forward, and began to fire. She focused her rockets down on the treads of the tank as it rolled forward, towards the school.

“Children,” Angela kept her voice calm. “Follow me. Let’s get over the hill, and Pharah will meet us there.”

The kids rose and stayed close to her and followed. They shuffled up the hill, past the rocks, while Fareeha fought the tank.

The tank’s gun went off with a deafening blast and Fareeha fell out of the sky.

Angela stared, wide-eyed in terror. Was Pharah hit? Would her suit just explode if it took a hit from that cannon—

Near the ground, Fareeha boosted her rocket pack and rushed forward, she fired rockets into the treads, and the tank rolled to a stop, the treads broken and shattered.

Angela got the kids over the top, and looked back where they’d come to see a little girl that’d tripped and was cowering behind a boulder while the fight went on. She was crying, she had her hands over her ears.

Down the hill, Jamal was out of his vehicle. He waved a flashlight on the ground near him.

“Do you see him?” Angela pointed.

The kids nodded.

“Go to him. He’ll get you to safety. Pharah and I will join you in a moment, okay?”

The kids nodded, and Angela saw them on their way. Slowly, they moved down the hill.

Angela ran back up, crested the top and rushed towards the little girl.

The top hatch of the tank opened, and soldiers climbed out with assault rifles to shoot at Pharah. One of the soldiers in the tank spotted Angela and started shooting at her with an assault rifle.

Angela lunged forward, swept her wings out, and covered the distance between her and the little girl in a heartbeat. She landed behind the boulder with the child, and looked past it to Pharah.

Pharah leapt into the air, and Angela held the girl tight. “Look,” She said. “Do you know what happens next?”

The little girl stopped crying briefly, and nodded, she said, “Justice rains from above.”

Pharah shoved her rocket launcher aside, and activated her rocket barrage; tiny warheads from launchers in her shoulders and thighs of her Raptora suit rained down on the target she aimed at.

The men died instantly, the explosions shredded the top of the tank and internally, and the tank itself died.

It smoldered and burned.

Pharah lifted her launcher, and landed on the ground. She jogged back towards Angela.

“Come on, habibti,” Angela said. “We must leave.”

“Get in the truck,” Fareeha said. “I’ll escort you back to the camp.”

Angela picked up the little girl, and together the three of them ran back to the truck. Angela put the girl in the front seat next to Jamal, and he set off.

“We’ll escort you,” Angela said.

“Mercy, get in the truck,” Fareeha tried to sound serious. And she made a good show of sounding worried.

“Drive,” Angela thumped the side of the vehicle, and Jamal pulled away.

“Liebling, that’s stupid,” Fareeha said.

“We’ll keep the skies clear together, habibti.” Angela said.

Despite her serious expression, Fareeha blushed.

Angela couldn’t wait any longer. She unbuckled Fareeha’s helmet, and gently tugged it off. Fareeha was not so gentle. She pulled Angela into her arms, and kissed her, deep and tender and desperate and so hungry for Angela that Angela felt faint in Fareeha’s arms.

She was no less hungry for Fareeha. She’d missed her terribly, and having her here, even in the middle of a warzone, was so emotionally satisfying that Angela wondered briefly if she were hallucinating.

Fareeha’s lips were dry and she tasted salty and there were drops of sweat on Fareeha’s temple. Angela brushed these aside with her thumb.

“Okay,” Fareeha said. “Let’s keep the skies clear, together.”

She pulled on her helmet, and leapt into the air, carried by her rocket pack.

Angela followed her up, and for a moment, was distracted by the view. Fareeha, her own guardian angel, framed by a million stars in the clear night sky.

Angela’s heart was so full of love she almost cried.

Together, Angela, Fareeha, and all the children, made it back to the refugee camp, safely.

And once there, Fareeha personally escorted Angela to bed.  

**Author's Note:**

> The next chapter may feature Lena "Tracer" Oxton trying to cope with the trauma of slipping in between time and space.


End file.
